Tucked between Palm Springs and Joshua Tree lies the Morongo Valley. This desert landscape may be an obscure location to hold a week-long student workshop. However, if there is one thing architects like Arata Isozaki and Albert Frey have taught us, it is that the desert is often a perfect backdrop for exploring materials, form, color, and spatial design.

The non-profit organization founded by Danny Wills and Gian Maria Socci provide a unique design laboratory experience for students to collect, explore, research, and experiment new potentials for design education. Not only do the students have the ability to prototype, build, and engage in transdisciplinary forms of architecture and design knowledge, they are also able to engage with practicing architects through site-specific projects. This year's Space Saloon experience titled "FIELDWORKS" allowed students to question various processes and techniques through data and data application.

Upon visiting to this year's Space Saloon site, I was greeted by the desert sun, intriguing site installations, and students eager to share their work and experiences. Located about two hours outside of Los Angeles, the drive to the project site felt like driving to a summer camp hideaway. After parking my car and entering the campsite, a colorful plywood structure located on top one of the hills caught my attention. The open infrastructure looked like a cross between an adult-sized jungle gym and a roofless/wall-less living room. Soon after, my eyes were drawn to the brightly painted, site-specific installations located throughout the vicinity.

Workshop led by Leah Wulfman and Maxime Lefebvre. Image by Zeno Lenger. Courtesy of Space Saloon

In its second year, the "community-in-residence" experience presented students with workshops led by Roundhouse, the2vvo, i/thee, Listening Instruments, Alex Coetzee, Rebecca Looringh-van Beeck, Leah Wulfman and Maxime Lefebvre. During the week, new workshops were undertaken by the group, efforts that augmented the building projects each team was challenged to complete by the end of the week. Office Kovacs + Kyle May, Architect, and MILLIØNS (Zeina Koreitem and John May) were the team leads spearheading the two larger projects. According to a few students, the team leads pushed the students to explore various forms of habitation, building materiality, ecology, and the concept of a site. Through this exploration, the end result was the creation of two infrastructures: DOTS and Gymnasium 1.

Project Breakdowns from an Observer

The deeper I walked through the site, the sooner I became immersed within Space Saloon's ethos, jolting me to look upon my surroundings with more curiosity. While approaching the first project, DOTS, located at the base of the hill, I was intrigued by the structure and its purpose. The bright pink-colored platforms were not easy to miss. With the project led by Office Kovacs + Kyle May, the infrastructure is meant to be a permanent fixture within the Space Saloon workshop site. According to the site team, the structure represents a flexible and temporary example of inhabitation, built on a five-by-five grid system that works with the topography of the surrounding area.

Each section of the site functions as a flexible area designed to satisfy varying scenarios that respond to experimentations with "collective camping." The grid allows for various configurations depending on the landscape, group size, and geography of the site. The design team describes DOTS as an infrastructure that "exists as a 'stable' configuration yet accommodates a number of 'unstable' interventions." While walking through the area, individuals are drawn to explore the space.

To the right of DOTs was an installation matching in color scheme and intrigue. Despite the color similarity, this piece resembled a layered topography image that had come to life. A workshop outcome led by i/thee (Lucas Hitch, Martin Hitch, Kristina Fisher), the installation, named Ebb (and Flow), is a "mirage that blends art, nature, and knowledge" according to the design team. Consisting of several tiered platforms stacked on top of the other, the forms of each stacked tier appear to flow around the surrounding area, allowing for the desert landscape to intertwine within the gaps of each tier. Light in construction and simple in form, the permeable structure laid still along the dusty ground. Students were found congregating near and around the installation, sitting on the piece as if it were a mini, pink oasis.

Workshop 3: Ebb (and Flow) to the left of DOTS sitting amongst the Morongo Valley. Image by Katherine Guimapang

Project 2: Gymnasium 1 led by MILLIØNS (Zeina Koreitem and John May). Image by Katherine Guimapang

Moving up the hill was the second student project, which was flooded with students and visitors. At first glance, the structure's function appeared almost too simple. A colorfully painted deck with a small pool that sat on top of the hill. However, after learning more about the structure and its innovative construction, it soon grew to be a favorable piece on the site. Called Gymnasium 1, the so-called "permanent monolithic deck" by the design team was made out of hempcrete, an alternative building material with carbon negative properties.

Complete with ample seating space and a lounge chair overlooking the valley, Gymnasium 1 comes also includes a pool for hot and cold bathing. The hempcrete tiles range in thickness from 6" to 3", properties that help the material respond to the extreme desert climate. The platform's varying thickness plays a crucial role in adapting to day and night time temperatures by creating a "variable thermal surface" crafted by the students and design team during the workshop.

Project 2: Gymnasium 1 led by MILLIØNS (Zeina Koreitem and John May). Image by Katherine Guimapang

Workshop: Roundhouse. Image by Zeno Lenger. Courtesy of Space Saloon

Upon speaking with the students participating in the week-long workshop, it was clear that the visiting workshop leads and lecturers had inspired a great deal of work and thought-provoking research from the group. The remainder of the afternoon proved to be a fantastic medley of structural exploration and site-specific habitation, all taking place amid the colorful forms juxtaposed with the desert landscape.

According to the Space Saloon team, the culmination of work, research, coded programs, immersive projects, and installations will be exhibited during the Fall in Los Angeles.

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About the Author

Katherine is a Los Angeles-based visual artist, architectural writer, and designer. She is currently an editorial writer and the advertising/media manager at Archinect. Her work focuses on immersive design and lighting/spatial installations. Much of her interests revolve around ...